The Drâa

South of Ouarzazate, on the other side of a tremendous ridge of the Anti-Atlas, begins the Drâa Valley – a 125km belt of date-palm oases that eventually merges into the Sahara near the village of M’Hamid. It is possible to complete a circuit through and out from the Drâa, heading from the valley’s main town, Zagora, west through Foum Zguid and Tata to the Anti-Atlas, or east to the Jebel Saghro or Rissani and Merzouga. However, most visitors content themselves with a return trip along the N9 between Ouarzazate and Zagora: a great route, taking you well south of anywhere in the Tafilalt, and flanked by an amazing series of turreted and creamy pink ksour and kasbahs; most of the larger and older ones are grouped a little way from the road, up above the terraces of date palms.

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M’Hamid and the Erg Chigaga

A small administrative centre built around a café-lined square, M’HAMID (also known as M’Hamid el Ghizlane) was once an important marketplace for nomadic and trans-Saharan trade, but of this role only a rather mundane Monday souk remains. Although M’Hamid is still more low-key than Zagora, you might be forgiven for thinking the village’s main raison d’être these days is getting tourists onto camels – there are any number of operators, official and unofficial, who offer camel trips into the desert proper.

Erg Lehoudi

The most easily accessible of the dunes around M’Hamid are those at Erg Lehoudi (“Dunes of the Jews”), 8km north of town, which can be reached, with guidance, in a normal car via a piste just outside the village. They see more than their share of day-trippers (and their rubbish) and hustlers, and despite reaching a height of over a hundred metres, somehow feel rather mundane.

Erg Chigaga

The most dramatic dunes in the entire Zagora region lie some 60km southwest of M’Hamid, where the 300m-high crescents of the Erg Chigaga ripple away into the horizon. The expense and time involved in getting here – a return trip by camel takes around five days; by costly 4WD, you can get there in less than two hours – is well worth it, and with quieter dunes and more spaced-out camps, the desert experience is much more akin to how you might imagine it.